Fathers Do Not Provoke Your Children to Anger — James Jennings

Well, for those who don't know, who aren't on the church email, we've had two deaths in the last few days. We've got a mother with us this morning who's grieving the loss of her son. And then we have the Moraleses, if you did not see.

They're a family who was a part of our church for over a decade. And their daughter, Nicole, shortly after a week or so after giving birth to her own daughter, died at 23 years of age. And so we definitely want to remember those families this morning grieving through loss.

Numbering Our Days and Parenting With Wisdom

And it's a reminder of Psalm 90 .12. Teach us to number our days. And then he gives a clear purpose why we should number our days. And what is that purpose? It's that we would have a heart of wisdom. A heart of wisdom.

And I was already planning this morning to speak to you on Ephesians 6 .4 so you can turn to Ephesians. And one of the main areas we specifically need wisdom is in regards to our parenting and our children.

Our children who we are so easily reminded of in these last days are with us for a time that is unbeknownst to us. Right? Jeff and Cheryl did not know their son would die at night 19. Our sister did not know her son Hector would die in his 40's.

And the Moraleses did not know Nicole would die at 23. It should definitely remind us of our need to love our children and invest time in them while we have them with us, even specifically while we have them with us in the home.

The Command Not to Provoke Children

But Ephesians 6, I specifically want to think about in verse 4 this command that Paul gives to the fathers. He says, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. And then he makes a contrasting statement.

It's not just not to provoke them to anger, but he gives us what to do. But bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And so God help us this morning. Let me pray. Father, Lord, I pray that You, the God of all comfort, Lord, would indeed abundantly, Lord, comfort the Nava family and the Morales family in the midst of the suffering that they are facing.

Lord, in the midst of this, we in no way want to forget Your sovereign control and power. And Lord, remembering even that power and control and Your awareness of our trials, Lord, that gives us hope. We can trust You.

Lord, I pray You would specifically help in regards to Nicole's husband, Lord, who is now left with this baby daughter Christina and no wife. Lord, would You use all of this in some way even to draw him to Yourself?

Father, we don't know how to understand all of these things, Lord, but we do know, Lord, even as Bobby spoke on the funeral the other day, on Ecclesiastes, Lord, it is better to go into a house of mourning than thanksgiving, for this is the end of all mankind and the living take it to heart.

Lord, one thing I'm wanting to take to heart this morning is, Lord, us as parents, Lord, being faithful to these precious, never dying, eternal souls that You have graciously given us for a short window and period of time in history.

And Lord, we are insufficient. Lord, we have blind spots. But You're greater than that. Lord, here we are. We want to grow. Father, I want to grow with the five children You've given me. I want to be a better parent.

And so, Lord, I ask for Your grace right now in delivering this sermon. In Jesus' name, Amen. Now, the Old Testament is filled with God being provoked to righteous anger because of Israel's sinful conduct.

You can find 30 examples. If you look at the same Greek word in the Greek Septuagint, you find the Old Testament is littered with these situations. Even Psalm 78, they provoked Him to anger with their high places, right?

We provoke our children to anger with something just as Israel provoked God with their high places. The provoking happens after sinful conduct takes place. Now, with God, every single response of God's being provoked to anger, what type of anger did God have?

Was it righteous, just, a holy anger without sin? There was never a blemish. Even in the righteous judgments that Israel executed upon wicked nations, you dare not approach that and think there was any wrong, unjust manifestation of the anger of God.

It's a holy response. But in Ephesians 6, 4, we find one of the few commands directed at fathers. One of the few commands directed at fathers, just after Paul has directly addressed children. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise. That it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. And then he says fathers. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.

But in contrast, bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. We find a parallel verse. Craig dealt with this in 2018. In Colossians, it says fathers in Colossians 3, 21. Fathers, do not provoke.

It's a different word in the Greek. Maybe it could better be rendered exasperate. Fathers, do not exasperate your children lest they become discouraged. So we are commanded to not speak or treat our children in a way that stirs up anger in their hearts.

Whether it's us pushing a saved child to have righteous anger against our hypocrisy, because that could be an application here is children having righteous anger, not just sinful anger. Or we have a child that has sinful anger and irritation because of our words and our conduct.

This is what we're being called to do. And I'm going to look at a lot of practical examples at some point. But why is this so serious? Why is this so serious? Because we can drive them away from trusting and respecting us and push them ultimately away from trusting and revering the God whom we say we serve, right?

Why would they trust the integrity of the living God who we say we represent if we ourselves do not manifest integrity and humility in our own lives? In Colossians, the reason Paul gives to not exasperate your children is they will become discouraged.

We don't like discouragement, right? I hate when I'm discouraged, yet there are times I've caused my children to become discouraged or to lose heart, right? The perfectionist parent, very apt to make their child lose heart.

They can never do anything well enough. Now, we've got a bunch of non-married people here in other places. I guess you could leave right now, right? This doesn't apply to you. Before any person who's not a parent thinks this is not applicable to you, remember Galatians 5. 26, Paul says, let us, that means everyone, not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

So here Paul is saying, do not strongly challenge one another to provoke or irritate them. So all believers are commanded to not provoke one another, right? And fathers are not just not to provoke their children, but there's another similar verse right before Colossians 3 .20, Colossians 3 .19, he says to love your wives and not be harsh with them, right?

Harshness towards the wife is a very quick way to stir her up where something's not right in her own heart or to stir her up, just actual righteous indignation because of your lack of love as a husband.

So the husband's harshness in his actions and words can stir up both the wife and the children to anger, right? Husbands, we got to look at ourselves this morning, right? I'm not talking about the other person who you've seen their blind spots, or I'm speaking to you, I'm speaking to me.

And even non-parents, how are you provoking people in the church through your conduct, right? It all can overflow in broader applications. And it's interesting, the anger, if righteous, Paul says in Ephesians 4, he says right here, be angry and do not sin.

And then he says, don't let the sun go down on your anger. In context there, he just spoke about what type of anger. Righteous indignation. And he's saying, don't let the sun go down with that still brewing because if righteous indignation is long lasted and not short lived, it has the ability to form into sinful anger.

Next day, it gives even an opportunity to the devil, Paul says. So in other words, me pushing someone to a point of anger can actually be pushing them towards an opportunity for the devil to deceive them with some lie against God in the midst of their anger.

Right, you see? And the same thing with our child. Where are we actually pushing them? It's not just to anger. It's to anger to carry over in the next day and then the next day there's an opportunity to be deceived by the evil one.

Pride, Love, and the Root of Provocation

Now, in contrast to don't provoke, right, one another, don't provoke our children to anger or be harsh with one another, we should do what? We should be loving. Right, this is what Paul says to the Galatians that through love, we should serve one another.

Now, Galatians 5, 26, you don't need to turn there, but what did he say comes prior to them provoking one another? Become conceited. Isn't it interesting? Pride, not humility, is what leads to provoking one another.

Our pride leads us to speak and treat others in a way that stirs them up to anger because in our pride, we believe we have the absolute right to treat them the way we are right now and we believe we are justified in our treatment.

So same thing, what's at the root of fathers provoking their children? Pride. That is often the thing. The leader in the family in his pride believes he is justified in his treatment and no one is there ultimately to stand and correct him and I myself am not in the home witnessing that and I have minimal witness of that treatment in a Sunday gathering or even in a visit to the family.

Now, what does pride also do? Pride doesn't just lead you to be conceited and provoke one another, pride will lead you to do what in regards to your own faults? What does it do? You don't see them, right?

Therefore, there is a possibility that I'm currently provoking my children to anger and I don't even recognize it because the same pride that leads me to provoke them is the same pride that keeps me from seeing how blind I am, especially my children who are least likely be able to express and articulate to me how my conduct is hurtful.

So in 1871, this is a long time ago, Alexander Mitchell wrote a letter to parents in the Presbyterian churches on their blind spots in parenting. He stated that he found that when correcting believers, correcting them specifically on the topic of their parenting was the least received reproof.

He said that in 1871. I've heard people say that in 2021. He said this, it has been met, this correction, with an indignant denial of the alleged facts and an expression of perfect obedience and the good intentions and exemplary conduct of the accused or suspected children.

I've often marbled to observe the blinding power of parental affection of some parents whose judgment on almost any other subject I would agree on without a moment's hesitation. But when it comes to their judgment on their children, too much partiality.

On one occasion, he went to a Christian father over a situation that was absolutely obvious. And I don't have the details of what that was, but he's saying it was obvious. And the father responded by saying, I've never known my son to be guilty of any such conduct.

You must be misinformed. So just as this father did not see his blindness towards the conduct of his child, so is he not seeing his own neglect of discipline that was actually leading to his child's conduct.

So how will he then correct the child's conduct if he doesn't even agree that the child has such a conduct and then he won't connect the dot to see part of that is most likely his own fault in a parenting failure?

You see, you end up not getting any cure because you don't have a proper diagnosis. So my point is we can be blind in parenting, such as blind to the ways we irritate and provoke our children to anger.

I'm saying all of that to expose you to the weakness that you and I have to hopefully make your ears and mind, even as I preach this, more attentive, to ask and search my own heart to make sure I'm not with a log in my eye and unable and unwilling to recognize that, right?

Now, is this a major deal for us to resolve such blind spots? How high on your parenting priority list should this be? It doesn't really matter. I mean, there's a lot of other things that are more important.

It's a major deal, especially in view of the short period of time we have to impact and influence our children. And our lives are going to either affirm or deny the message that we preach to them. So it's a major deal.

Mitchell went on to say this. It is through you that your children have been launched on the ocean of a boundless existence. And is it a manner of no concern to you whether they are to inherit immortality of glory or an immortality of woe?

Can you look upon them as they are contracting habits in which lurk the seeds of endless misery and reflect that they are bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh and yet leave them to press onward unrestrained and unwarned into the downward row?

Stirring Children Toward Love and Good Works

So we've seen four things so far I'm trying to get you to think about. Number one, this matter of not provoking one another is applicable for all of us. Two, our pride can lead us to provoke our children and others.

Pride is a root here. And ultimately what's rooted in pride is unbelief and wrongly perceiving reality in yourself. Three, our pride can also lead us to refuse to acknowledge our faults. Okay, and therefore we stay in our faults because our heels are dug in.

And fourthly, I want you to see that the overarching conduct we need is love in our speech and life. This is ultimately about not stirring our children up to anger, but doing as Hebrews 10 says, stirring them up and stirring one another up to what?

Love and good works. Right, we should be provoking one another. Not to sin, not to even righteous anger and putting someone in that situation where there might even be an opportunity the next day for the devil, but to stir them up to love and good works.

So when was the last time you stirred someone up to anger with your impatience and your harsh conduct? Do you know of anyone angry at you right now? Though their anger is sinful anger, it's their own sin, Paul makes it clear we're responsible to not do something that leads them to it, right?

This is a very biblical principle emphasized in multiple places. Jesus says in Matthew 18, seven, woe to the one by whom what? Temptation comes, right? Just stirring them up in our conduct, in our words that might lead to sinful anger, that's not an insignificant thing.

Jesus says, woe, not W-O-W, W-O-E, right? A serious type of curse. So we should recognize this. So let's think for a moment about anger, about anger, which the word provoke in the Greek in Ephesians 6, 4 carries this meaning of leading them to wrath.

Even if you look at the literal, I don't believe it even has the word anger in it, but the translators put it there because of the word provoke. Now, what is the difference in a brief statement, not a whole sermon, between sinful anger and righteous anger?

How would you make that distinction? The most common way, and I think the right way to make the distinction is one's anger, when it is righteous, they are concerned about the offense primarily being against who?

God, right? When one is primarily concerned about how the offense affected oneself, this is often full of sinful anger and it's so personal what has happened. Now, you and I's anger and impatience can be a massive cause of our children's anger, right?

Our actions, attitudes, speech can make the child sinfully angry. They can be annoyed, irritated, inflamed, and Paul's saying we are not to conduct ourselves in a way that nurtures evil in the heart of our children.

We are not to do things that push them to a point of anger. And again, you guys and anyone in the church without children, same thing to you with the brethren in the church in the life of a Christian.

Anger, Influence, and the Example of Proverbs 22

Now, this is a very interesting point. It's supposed to be an ouch point that this guy mentioned. Proverbs 22, 24. Listen to this verse. Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.

Read that first part again. Make no friendship with a man given to anger. What application could you draw if the father is constantly given to anger? How would that apply to the child? What would you say to the child?

Should you even be friends with your father? Should your child even be hanging around you according to this proverb? You know what it says? If I command my kid, make no friendship with a man given to anger, but I'm that man, lest you learn his ways so my child is learning my ways, am I in any way by my conduct entangling my children in a snare?

I want my children to be around me and learning from me and imitating that which is good. And yes, imitating the humility of acknowledging whatever fault that I have when I've had it and going to them in clearing my conscience.

Sam Crabtree in his book Parenting with Love and Correction, I think he's quoting someone else, he said this, some people do not realize they have anger issues until they are parents. And then all of a sudden, buttons are pushed and tempers flare.

Some moms and dads think they need to be firm to get their point across, but their version of firm is really an expression of anger. Therefore, parents should earnestly pray that our meek Lord Jesus would root out unholy, underlying, and overtly angry expressions with their children in discipline and daily interactions.

Our anger provokes anger in our children, and we do not want that. But you catch his point? What if my definition of firm that I've now created as a standard in my household is actually a manifestation of anger?

Right? But everyone around me agrees, oh, daddy's just being firm. I mean, it's a holy firm. Firmness is a right, strong response as the leader of the home. Crabtree is saying you could so delude what anger is and isn't in the household where the father is actually his firmness, his anger, but he's calling it something it's not.

Kind of like the false prophets saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. And if you say, well, there's no way that could apply to me. No, no. We need the humility to recognize the same pride that leads us to provoke our children to wrath could be the same pride keeping us from recognizing a blind spot.

And the truth is we all have blind spots at certain points, and whenever we think we're consistent, we always have the ability to go back into another blind spot. Now, I don't have time in one sermon to deal with everything contained in these verses.

I'm not going to dice up verse 1, 2, 3. I don't have time for that. But why does he directly address fathers and not both parents? I've heard some, they right away make the statement, well, it's because the dads are the ones who get angry more.

I don't see that there. That's not what's happening. Where is that saying that the man is the one who always gets angry? What did Paul just establish in Ephesians 5? What about the man? The man is the head.

He is to lead, right? So Paul is addressing the leader, knowing if you address the main person, say, in the government, what will that do? It will go down through the chain of command and affect the conduct of all.

The leader is responsible. You hear that, husband? You and I, we're responsible. We can't neglect this. We need to be alert. Husbands can affect change in the whole structure of how our families operate.

A lot could happen in one week if you're really determined. Our wives are called to submit to us. Paul's established that. And then a stronger word is even used for children. They are called to obey. That's a stronger word than the word to the wife to submit to the husband.

Colossians 3 .20 says, Obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. I mean, this is an incredible privilege that by our harshness and impatience, we can crush those who are following our leadership.

I'm commanded to not be harsh with my wife. And I'm commanded to not provoke my children to anger. To not exasperate my children. Here I am trying to lead this family unit. There's a lot of pressure, right?

As some of you have rightly said, you would rather be on the submitting role of the marriage than on the leading role of the marriage. Because you've been in leadership long enough, you want to get a demotion and you want to go back down because of the pressure.

But you know what? We don't have that option. We're not going to change roles and we're not going to ignore the Word of God. And if God has put you in that place and He's made you a man, guess what? You'll be able to do this enabled by the power of His grace.

Neglecting the Positive Command to Raise Children

So, I want to give a list of how we provoke our children to anger. And a lot of these I got from The Heart of Anger by Lou Priolo. So a lot of these I took. I kind of modified some. And he also has, I found a series of his on YouTube where he deals with how to provoke your children to anger part one, part two, and how your children disrespect you.

It's forwarded by John MacArthur. I haven't read the whole book, but overall it's been a very good book. Food for the Thought. Now, with that said, what should the first example be from the text itself?

Fathers do not provoke your children to anger. What is the first way that you can pull out about how fathers provoke their children to anger? By not listening to that word be, b-u-t. That contrasting statement.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. Oh, okay, I won't do that. No, no, He doesn't stop there. He commands you to do something. If you don't do the very command He's given, you ignore the positive aspect of the command.

That's the first way you and I will provoke our children to wrath, to anger, right? By not doing the positive. By not training them, you will do the opposite and provoke them. If I don't invest the time and the energy to nourish, instruct, admonish, and discipline them, right there you're going to provoke them to anger.

That's step number one. If you want to make your child angry, don't do your role. Don't invest the time and the energy into your children. Now, when Paul says bring them up, what are we talking about here?

We are talking about thousands of hours of your life. A child is no pet cat. That you get the cat and it just kind of does its thing on its own and it cleans itself and it just goes around and you kind of give it food every once in a while and you check on it every once in a while.

A lot of people are treating their kids like that. Right? Just set them in front of technology and let technology babysit them all day long. I'm not saying there's not a place for technology to help babysit your child, but this is a time investment.

You don't just get out there and interact a little. We're living our lives together and we have a brief window. Did our brother and sister know that their daughter, five years after being 18, would now be gone?

They didn't know that. And we don't know. Jeff didn't know, and Cheryl, that their son would die at 19. We don't know these things. It should give us a heart of wisdom and a desire to not be negligent.

Now, he's still speaking to fathers here when he says, but bring them up. He's not talking to the mothers. Not that mothers are not involved, but again, it's all in this structure that Paul has already established.

If a saved father is in the picture, which I realize some sisters do not have that, and this falls on you, it's their responsibility to make sure this instruction and teaching is happening. That it is happening.

Nourishment, Discipline, and Instruction

Now briefly, Phil's thinking about how you provoke. If how you provoke is by not doing what the text says, let's think here about what some of these terms mean. So the first thing he says here is bring them up.

Bring them up. What word is bring them up? Has anyone studied this before? Do you know what word that is? It was just used in verse 29 of chapter 5. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes.

It's the only other place. It's in the entire New Testament. It's the word nourish. Paul just used that. So husbands, I've got to nourish my wife. I've got to nourish my children. I've got to bring them up.

Nourishing them. There's this nurturing care to raise them to a full maturity, to a point of stability, to a point of independence. You even find that same word in the Greek Old Testament in Psalm 23, to He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still water. That's the word. Lead. Right? The Lord is doing this to us. David is saying the Lord was nourishing me. We too are to do that. We're called to provide physical, spiritual nutrition to nourish and to not hate our own flesh through a lack of provision for it.

And then you've got the word discipline. I know a lot more could be said on a lot of these terms, but I've limited time. Discipline. You find this same Greek word another place in the New Testament and it kind of sheds more light, but Hebrews 12, speaking of how God fathers us, right?

And obviously, God's wanting us to father after Him. And it says there, for the moment, all discipline seems painful. There's a pain involved in discipline rather than pleasant. But later, discipline yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been what?

Trained. Right? So there is training. Why do they write a book called Training Up a Child? That word. That's what's involved in discipline. It's training. You've got pain and training going hand in hand and you're headed somewhere.

Where did Paul say, or the writer of Hebrews say you're headed? It later yields what? Peaceful fruit. Peaceful fruit. Wait, you mean I should really expect as a parent that my children should be providing joy?

Yeah. There should be, even if they're lost, there should be some sense that they're a joy and not a rot to my bones. But the Proverbs say a child left to himself does bring rot to his mother's bones.

Obviously, if you don't know it, discipline is so much more than just spanking. Proverbs 29 says the rod and reproof. That is, you're bringing the heir to light. It gives wisdom. But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

Often, all you have is a parent who's reproving and they're exposing the heir. And then you got a parent over here, they don't really instruct and reprove, they're just spanking the child. You don't need one without the other, you need both together.

If you don't do that, it will provoke your child. In Hebrews, what does it talk about? God's care towards us. It's motivated out of love. Does love motivate your discipline? Does love motivate your training up of your children?

Proverbs 13, 24, whoever spares the rod hates his son. But he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. What does Paul say? He says, if you don't get disciplined by the Lord, not Paul, sorry, the writer of Hebrews, whoever he was, if it was Luke, Paul, what does he say?

If you don't get disciplined by God the Father, what does that make you? An illegitimate child. Right? It's as if you're not his child. In the same way, if my neglect of my kids is such that I neglect them, someone could say, is that even your child?

And I say, yes, it is my child. And their response should be, then why aren't you investing in them? And obeying what? Scriptures teach. A fast way to provoke your child is to not discipline them in love and to fail to take the time and energy to instruct and reproof them with gracious words and bring them up to this point of maturity.

I mean, you think about this. How frustrating is it to get hired at a job and then the manager kind of invites you in, gives you your name tag, gives you one instruction and just leaves you to figure out what to do.

Would you be happy to be working? That'd be very, it'd irritate you. Right? Many parents, it's the same thing. Oh, little guy did some wrong, bam, bam, bam. And then, you know, I got to get back to the highlights.

I got to get back to the job. I got to get back to this. No instruction, no communicating, no raising up, no nourishing is happening. I don't have time. What's more important than this? Parents? What's more important than this?

I mean, seriously, it's not a minor thing that many men will make an idol out of the ministry at the neglect of their family. And I would say there are women who do the same thing. Right? You can make your work like Martha and Luke 10, such a priority of serving where you're neglecting what is necessary.

For her, it wasn't her kids, it was sitting at the feet of Christ. Right? When it's all been said and done, when my kids are gone, or even maybe when my kids might actually die before I do, I will look back and I will reflect on how I did as a parent, not in a self-condemning way because we all have different faults, but I don't want to have regret that I was negligent and didn't give it my all.

John MacArthur, he says, discipline is training by rules and regulations enforced by rewards and punishment. Proverbs 13, 24, it said to diligently discipline them. Many miss that word. I discipline my kids, they say.

What's the text say? Diligent. Diligent. Just as much as wrong discipline provokes a child, so does discipline that is inconsistently given forth. Inconsistency is one of the greatest failures of parents.

When I look at my own failures as a parent, it always comes back to inconsistency because of my laziness at certain points. You know, one day the child is punished for this, the other day you don't care.

You're basically creating in your child all manner of confusion. As Tim Conway said, it's better to have five rules you uphold than 150 rules that you don't uphold. As one brother said, most parents are afraid of exasperating their children by being too firm, but most parents exasperate their children by not being firm consistently.

Consistently. You know, I will never forget a family. You all do not know them. They're not among us, but this family I'll never forget. The father would consistently discipline the child, train the child, love the child.

The mother just gave the child her own way. Could do whatever she wanted, all the freedom she wanted. Wouldn't discipline them. And you know what I found out the daughter said to someone? She said, I hate one of my parents and I love the other.

Which parent do you think she hated? Her mother. Right, the world says, no, that's wrong. The parent who gives the most freedom to the child should be the parent that the child loves the most. No, that's incorrect.

That's so disrespectful that you're just going to give them all manner of freedom and it has no, that you're telling them you don't matter to me. I'm not going to invest. I'm not going to do what's hard.

I'm not going to confront you when I could confront you. Lou Priolo says, if boundaries are unclear, then you provoke them by tempting them to violate because you don't always deal with it. It's just unclear.

Make and enforce rules or else provoke the child to be angry at your inconsistent, flippant leadership where they just don't know what's good and what's not. Still thinking about Ephesians 5. Wives are to submit to the husbands and the husband is to lead.

You could provoke your children by the parents not being on the same page. I mean, you think about the frustration some of us have with the government's lack of being on the same page. Right? It's like one branch says, I mean, you just go try to do your taxes and you got all these different people saying all these different things.

It's just confusing. Some children, that's what it feels like. It feels like going to the IRS and the kid can't get a clear answer from dad or mom and it's just confusing. Kids shouldn't be doing their taxes at six years old.

Or feeling the stress that one feels when they do do their taxes in a business tax form. So, look, our culture, I mean, we're all aware there are many angry parents who their version of spanking is just flat out physical abuse.

There's all sorts of parents who their quick way to get their kid to be quiet is to be angry at them and to slap them on the face. Paul and the Bible is not dealing with physical abuse. The whole topic in many ways has become taboo because of these sayings.

In some countries, spanking is even banned. You think of our brethren in Switzerland, they don't even allow it legally in that country. I mean, America is going to be headed towards that one day at some point.